Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Cetaceans/Archive 2

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[edit] Joining the project

Is there a user list for joining the project? I've been wanting to join. I know quite a bit about marine mammals and have read many books and references about them. --Belugaperson 13:49, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

On the project page, there is a section entitled "Confessed contributors" where you can add your name. Thank you for wanting to contribute. --Gray Porpoise 15:20, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Award?

There's a Bio Barnstar for biology-related contributions, but I think there should also be some more specific WikiProject awards. In my opinion, WikiProject Cetaceans should have its own award, preferably a light blue star with "engravings" of dolphins on the points and a small image of a whale fluke within the center circle or something. (I'm a terrible graphics maker.) I'll list this on Wikipedia:Barnstar and award proposals if I can get some support (and a decent image). --Gray Porpoise 15:27, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree. I think that's a good idea. --Belugaperson 14:14, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Deleting outdated discussions

I see several discussions that are no longer active, for example, the Saving the Portal one seems to be unnecessary at this point. Is one allowed to delete such discussions? --Belugaperson 14:46, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

The talk page will be archived when it gets too long and has many inactive discussions. Let me know if you have any further questions. --Gray Porpoise 23:05, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Article Assessment

When, if at all, shall we start assessment of cetacean articles? --Gray Porpoise 00:27, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

  • Thats a good point, maybe we could start going through some now, they don't all have to be done in one go. Maybe we should make a sub page for the assessments. --chris_huh 23:00, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
    • How about we have a sort of "sign up sheet", where members of the project can sign up to assess articles (maybe 5 per article)? That way, anyone who wants to help assess an article can do so. I would really like to get active in WikiProject Cetaceans. --Gray Porpoise 01:07, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
      • I have changed the project page a bit so that it has more focus on improving the articles. As for article assessment how do you think we should do it, over at the sharks portal they have a status table. We could design ours around that so that there are set headers that are required and then we could mention any extra stuff that is included, but maybe with a sentance or so on each header, rather than a tick. Or should we just work on choosing a grade or something for each article? I personally think the first idea may be better as then it would be less on personal preference and more on set criteria. --chris_huh 23:17, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
        • Hmm... I'm not sure. Something with set criteria but a little bit of room for debate sounds effective. Let's get comments from other WikiProject Cetaceans members. --Gray Porpoise 01:22, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
        • I like the idea of a chart of some sort; makes it easier to know where to start. --Grahamtalk/mail/e 07:06, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] taxonomic trees

A question was posed at Talk:Porpoise about the Taxonomy section that some of the Cetacea articles have. Basically, they are confusing because they give too much information. Those sections at Porpoise and Delphinidae give the entire Cetacea tree; the one at River dolphin is more reasonable.

I personally would like to see one of the navigational footers to show the Cetacea, like this:

Cetaceans (Dolphins, Whales, and Porpoises)
v • d • e
Image:Tursiops truncatus head.jpg
Suborder Mysticeti (baleen whales): Eschrichtiidae (gray whales) - Balaenopteridae (rorquals) - Balaenidae (right whales) - Neobalaenidae (pygmy right whale)
Suborder Odontoceti (toothed whales): Platanistoidea (river dolphins) - Delphinidae (oceanic dolphins) - Phocoenidae (porpoises) - Monodontidae (beluga and narwhal) - Physeteridae (sperm whales) - Kogiidae (pygmy and dwarf sperm whales) - Ziphiidae (beaked whales)

(This is a mockup from my sandbox; please don't use it!) If you think it's a good idea to replace those Taxonomy sections with this navigational footer, let me know and I'll put it into the template namespace. --Grahamtalk/mail/e 07:04, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

I like the idea of having a footer box, and this one looks good. I agree that some of the pages have more information on than they need, i don't know why they have all of the other families and stuff when they are not needed.--chris_huh 10:51, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
OK, sounds good. Should I keep the scientific names in the navigational footer? --Grahamtalk/mail/e 08:22, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
Having the scientific names i think is a good idea, the only question is that if they weren't there, would it be much smaller. If it was a bit smaller it might be better to have at the end of the articles.--chris_huh 12:38, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
I'm opposed to replacing the taxonomy section, or the trees therein, with a nav footer. The two serve different purposes. The taxonomy tree shows where things lie in relationship to others, while the nav footer does not. I will modify the taxonomy sections pointed out above to be more informative. - UtherSRG (talk) 13:09, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
Oh yes, i didn't realise you meant to replace the taxonomy trees, they are vital, i think, even if at the moment they are not displaying just the required information. I thought that the plan was to have a footer as well, that could be a good idea as it does show you all of the related families, whereas the taxonomic trees are just for the closely related species. --chris_huh 13:13, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
Honestly, I think that including a complete tree at the family level is a little clunky. I would put a list of porpoise species there and use a nav footer. As the Talk:Porpoise questioner pointed out, it was hard to tell why the Porpoise list included, say, Ziphiidae. --Grahamtalk/mail/e 17:54, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Collaboration

Idea stolen borrowed from WikiProject Sharks. Previous joke stolen borrowed from some RfA questions. Maybe we could start a collaboration project for WikiProject Cetaceans. WikiProject Sharks has a Collaboration of the Fortnight, but since the Cetaceans project has fewer active users (Chris_huh seems to be doing much of the work), ours could be for the month or quarter. --Gray Porpoise 21:37, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

I actually set up the COTF on Wikipedia:WikiProject Sharks and that's where i have been for a while, setting up the project to get it off it's feet. I had been thinking of doing a cetaceans one as well. Fortnight or month would be best i think. Probably month. I can set that up if you want. Also what i was thinking about was assessment of articles, have a look at the sharks one and that was what i was thinking, it is the official kinda one. With assessment it doesnt really matter how long it takes so i think that one should work ok too.--chris_huh 21:59, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
The WikiProject Sharks collaboration project has an agreeable method. --Gray Porpoise 01:50, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject Sharks

There is another WikiProject called Wikipedia:WikiProject Sharks, which, surprisingly, is about sharks. I thought i would mention it here to see if anyone would be interested in helping out.--chris_huh 21:59, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Good Article candidate

Dolphinarium has been nominated for Good Article status - It actually went up on 18 August, but i didn't notice chris_huh 13:58, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Welcome message

I have made a draft of a welcome message we could use at User:Gray Porpoise/WikiProject Cetaceans/Welcome Message. Please comment on it and edit it to your liking. --Gray Porpoise 23:48, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

I like the idea of having the todo list template in there, it makes sense i guess. Although do you think the blue may make it stand out too much, a bit striking, wouldn't it look better just with a white background, but maybe a blue or grey border around it perhaps. chris_huh 01:12, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
I made an edit to your one, if you hadn't noticed. What do you think of that? chris_huh 23:56, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
I like that! The original was just a rough idea, awaiting a good designer. --Gray Porpoise 00:59, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
Should I move it to a subpage of WikiProject Cetaceans, or leave it in my userspace? --Gray Porpoise 16:29, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
Might as well move it to Wikipedia:WikiProject Cetaceans/Welcome or something like that. chris_huh 17:06, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Size comparison diagrams

I have made a few diagrams for particular cetaceans which compares the size of them against an average human as i thought these would be useful images. I have uploaded 11 to commons so far called things like Sperm_whale_size.png and Blue_whale_size.png etc. What do you think about these (they are quite basic), and where should they go on the pages. It would be handy if they could go in the taxobox, maybe in the image2 parameter, so that then they are all in the same place on all pages, rather than having some in strange places. chris_huh 01:10, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

That's a good idea. --Gray Porpoise 01:29, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
I have added the images to most of the cetacean articles. I haven't made ones for the porpoises or river and oceanic dolphins. I will ge tround to that soon. Some of themi don't have informaiton for so i will have to find them somewhere else chris_huh 15:54, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
Very nice indeed. Every time I see one, I cant help but think the diver is about to get whacked! Istvan 22:41, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Collaboration of the Month

I have set up a collaboration. This is essentially a copy of the one i made on Wikipedia:WikiProject Sharks although, of course this one is about cetaceans! It is also a collaboration of the MONTH as there aren't too many of use, nor are there a great deal of articles. I have added links to it from the main project page. Any one got any good ideas for what the first one could be? chris_huh 23:48, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Beached whale is the new collaboration. It hasn't been edited this month, hopefully it will become more active. --Gray Porpoise 01:19, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Idea

Another idea of mine for a Cetaceans subproject: factual accuracy check. Members could sign up to read through articles and make sure, using outside sources, that there aren't inaccuracies. --Gray Porpoise 00:36, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Taxonomy and templates

I have reworked the way the taxonomy can be sorted for Cetaceans How it basically works now is that each genus has a template, which can be placed on the page for that genus ( as in Balaena). Then each family above that has a template which transcludes that genus template which can then be used on the family page (as in Balaenidae). This builds up to order level (Cetacea) going through genus, sub-family, family, super-family, sub-order (as long as they have them). The top level template is {{Cetacea_taxonomy}} (the rest follow this naming technique). This should allow us to both have a taxonomic listing on each relevant page (eg River dolphins) and to only need to update it the one time through the template.

So if anyone notices a good place to put one of these templates (as on a genera page or somethign) then add them and maybe put:

<!-- This taxonomy is created from several templates allowing it to be edited just once but provide global change. To edit a specific part please edit the relevent template.-->

above so that future editors can understand what is going on. I have used them so far on some pages including Mysticeti and Odontoceti.

I made the templates from information from the Odontoceti and Mysticeti pages before i realised that the information on the Cetacea page had further information. Is there anyone who knows a bit more about the taxonomy of cetaceans that could have a look at the templates and check is they might need something else on them. I left out Tropical dusky dolphin, i have no idea where this came from and i havent heard of one before, so i dont know if this is real or not.

chris_huh 23:21, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm not certain this is a good idea. While it is similar to what is done on Wikispecies, that site has a much lower traffic profile and so the compounding of templates has little effect on the site. Wikipedia has such a high traffic profile that the compounding of templates in this manner puts an undue strain on the servers. This is one of the reasons that the taxoboxes were changed to be a single template instead of multiple and sometimes nested templates. - UtherSRG (talk) 12:32, 28 September 2006 (UTC)